


Punch

by Emphysematous



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Fighting, M/M, MeetCute, Period-Typical Homophobia, Secret Sex, Tommy's palpable internalised homophobia, eternal optimist Freddie Thorne, getting propositioned, i genuinely don't remember writing anything with so little adult content since I was at school, mentions of blowjobs, more like attempting to fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 19:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30026907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emphysematous/pseuds/Emphysematous
Summary: Freddie has a fight with Tommy - and then meets someone new.
Relationships: Freddie Thorne/Bonnie Gold, Tommy Shelby/Freddie Thorne
Kudos: 6





	Punch

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to mobile_mom for the prompt!

* * *

He should have known. It had been too perfect. 

First, that Tommy hadn’t immediately buttoned himself up and left the moment he’d come; and then that he’d actually seemed happy -  _ cheerful _ , even - as they lay on their backs in the late summer grass in the shade of a hedge and talked and laughed and watched the clouds drift by like they were fifteen again and the war had never happened. 

So of course he’d ruined it by going too far and pushing too hard. 

He’d just been  _ happy _ . Had just wanted to share his hopes and his wishful thinking - but Tom had always spooked like a skittish colt and before Freddie could dilute his excitement with hastily added ‘if only’s and ‘i wish’es, he’d abruptly sat up and started to relace his boots with a grumble. “Will you just  _ stop _ with this nonsense, Freddie?”

And Freddie, idealistic fool that he was, had snapped back at him. “It’s not nonsense! I mean it, Tom. We could  _ do _ it.” They really could. The world was on the brink of a global revolution. Once the aristocracy had been stripped of their power, their hidebound made-up rules of religious morality would go with them, and everyone would be able to live their lives however they wanted, unafraid of losing their jobs or housing because the landlord didn’t like them. 

“Don’t be fucking riduculous.” Tommy turned away, securing his double knot with a sharp tug. 

He knew it was a pointless endeavour, but he just couldn’t help himself. “There are places we could go, Tom. Places that will let us live how we--” 

Tommy swung round with his arms raised as if ready to hit him. “Like  _ where _ ? Eh? Some tribe in the middle of the jungle? Some commune a hundred miles from anywhere civilised?  _ Where _ could we go?”

And a stupid, pathetic part of Freddie’s heart flared with hope because he’d not just dismissed the whole idea out of hand. He tried to collect his thoughts, marshall his best arguments. “Lots of places! Paris, or Berlin! Berlin is full of places where people like us are normal, Tom. We could… uh...” he faltered to a stop at the look of pure contempt that had flickered across Tommy’s face. 

_ Shit. _

Tommy picked up his jacket and shook the dried grass from it, reaching into its pocket for his cigarettes. He lit one and took a drag before Freddie was deemed worthy of notice again. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled - which wasn’t a good thing. “People like us?” It sounded like such an innocent question. It really wasn’t.

Freddie tried to diffuse the tension with a smile. “Well, yeah.” He gestured between the two of them. “Men who--”

“You mean people like  _ you _ .” Tommy snapped. He got to his feet and pulled his jacket on. “And you can forget it. I’m not going anywhere full of…” he shook his head, swallowing back whatever he’d been about to say. Took another drag of smoke.

“Full of what, Tom?” Freddie asked, clambering to his feet himself. 

Tommy barely glanced at him. “Full of people like  _ that, _ ” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the distant horizon. 

Freddie stepped in front of him. “People like me?” Tommy turned away, shifting to scan the treeline to the north. Annoyed, Freddie marched in front of him again. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

Tommy stared coolly at him, taking one last quick drag. “I’m not having this conversation.” He flicked the remains of the cigarette to the ground and walked off back to the bridlepath and the road and his parked car. 

Freddie struggled into his crumpled jacket and yelled after him. “Oh yeah, run away, Tommy! Fucking run away as usual. You come to me to get your cock sucked but won’t even fucking  _ talk _ to me about anything that might actually make a difference to--” he was cut off abruptly because Tommy had pivoted about and marched back to him, one finger pointing, his jaw clenched. He attempted a preemptive punch but Tommy dodged it as if it was nothing and landed an open handed slap squarely on his jaw. Freddie swung wildly again, catching the side of Tommy’s head. Pain blossomed through his hand and wrist and he hissed through his teeth, shaking his hand violently to try to ease the sting. 

Tommy, however, seemed entirely unaffected.

He grabbed Freddie by the collar and came quite close to lifting him off his feet for a moment, despite their size difference. “You shut the fuck up,  _ right now _ \- do you hear me?  _ Shut the fuck up! _ ” A sudden push and and a kick to the side of the knee had Freddie falling heavily onto his arse. Tommy loomed over him, eyes black under the peak of his bladed cap. 

“I have told you this, time and again.” Tommy growled at him, every word pronounced with exaggerated clarity. He pointed between them. “We are not a fucking couple. We are  _ not  _ ‘courting’. We are  _ not _ in love. This is  _ not _ romantic. Do you fucking get it?” He punctuated the question by grabbing at Freddie’s shirt and shaking him. A couple of buttons popped off and disappeared into the overgrown grass.

Tommy released him with a shove and seized hold of his jaw with a bruising grip, forcing him to look up at him. “Yeah, I let you suck my cock, alright?” Tommy hissed in an undertone. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I let you suck my cock because you fucking  _ asked _ me if you could, remember? And you’re pretty good at it, so I thought I might as well let you keep doing it if it made you happy.” 

He let go of Freddie’s face and clutched at a handful of his hair instead. “But I am telling you for the last fucking time, Freddie - I  _ do not _ love you. I will  _ never _ love you the way you want. We are  _ never _ going to run away together. Do you fucking  _ hear me _ ?” A violent shake at this last question.

“I hear you.” Freddie croaked out, mouth totally dry.

“Good.” Tommy released him abruptly and he fell back onto the grass, a little dazed. Tommy stepped back and actually paused to light a new cigarette. “If you see me around, leave me the fuck alone - and find yourself a girl to fuck.”

And then he was gone. 

* * *

Freddie rubbed at his jaw and watched Tommy’s silhouette disappear into the distance. Only when he’d finally rounded the solitary oak and disappeared from sight did he allow himself to pound his fists into the ground and roar out his frustration 

“Y’alright there?” A chirpy voice asked from a few feet behind him. Freddie shrieked and almost got airborne from the force of his jump. “Shit, sorry. Y’okay?” The voice chuckled. 

Freddie whirled around onto his hands and knees to face a grinning dark haired lad in well-worn but serviceable clothing standing on the other side of the hedge. “Fucking hell, where did you come from?” He sat back on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair, ears burning with the blush that was glowing across his cheeks.

The lad held up a couple of limp rabbits. “Checkin’ the snares.” He continued to smile broadly, but seemed to have nothing further to add, content with just plucking at a couple of leaves from the top of the hedge and watching Freddie kneeling in the grass.

Feeling immensely stupid, Freddie pushed himself upright and dusted himself down. He could feel the lad looking at him like it was a physical pressure. “Right.” He said, awkwardly. “Well, I won’t keep you.”

He lifted his hand in a stilted kind of wave and then - blushing even deeper - turned on his heel to go in the same direction as Tommy had taken. His heart sank. Tommy who by now had undoubtedly taken the car back to town and left him here with a nice six mile trek home. Not a terrible distance, but hardly the way he’d planned to spend his afternoon. He sighed and resigned himself to the walk.

“You overreach when you punch,” the lad called out after him.

Freddie stopped and looked back, raising his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. “What?”

With a surprisingly fluid movement, the boy laid his shoulder onto the top of the hedge and somehow rolled his whole body over it without falling into it or getting tangled up in its thousands of tiny branches. He dumped his bag and the rabbits into a pile and demonstrated throwing a punch. “You overreach. Stretch your arm out too far. It makes you clumsy and slower, and then you’re open to getting hit.”

Freddie flushed brighter red. He shrugged helplessly. “You saw that, huh?” Of course he had. Of course this cocky young man had seen him get knocked onto his arse and left in the mud. Fantastic. 

A cheerful nod and a remarkably acute appraising glance from his feet to his hair and back down again that made Freddie feel rather like he was a horse being offered for sale at a market. Another bright smile. “You’ve got a good length to you already, you just need to learn to use it better.” 

Freddie stared incredulously at him, completely at a loss for anything to say.

His lack of reply seemed to make no difference to the lad, who shrugged out of his coat and rolled up his sleeves, dropping naturally into a fighting stance. “So look, you’re at arm’s length, yeah? What you did was this, reaching all the way from the shoulder, and punching at the face.” He demonstrated in slow motion. “But look, it’s a long way for my fist to go. Gives you plenty of time to get some hooks in while I reset to guarding, yeah?” 

He gave Freddie no time to respond, carrying blithely on. “So. Instead, you wanna try to keep your arm a little bit bent, just a bit, but use your legs and your back to drive your shoulder forward into the punch.” Another slow demonstration. “See? You get the same distance but far more power. Then you can snap back to guarding by pulling back with your arm, shoulder, back and legs all together. “ He did so. “See? Give it a go.” He straightened up and gestured at Freddie.

“What?” Freddie blinked, looking around himself like there might be someone else the lad was talking to.

An encouraging nod. “Give it a go. Throw a punch at me.” He beckoned with his fingers and stepped closer.

Freddie took a step back. “I… I can’t just  _ punch _ you for no reason!”

An outright laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you hurt me.” Such utter confidence. The lad smiled warmly. “Trust me. Just go for it.” He stood still and held his hands out from his body, providing the perfect target. 

And Freddie swung at him.

Even  _ he _ hadn’t been expecting himself to actually try to punch the man - so he was astounded when he simply leaned aside and let the punch sail safely past his head without even shuffling his feet. He returned upright and nodded enthusiastically, clapping his hands. “Right! So that was better power, but you’re aiming for my face, aren’t you?”

Freddie looked down at his fist, wondering if perhaps there was something wrong with it that made it entirely incapable of causing any damage. “That’s where I was trying to hit,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

“Yeah. I know. But you shouldn’t try to hit my face. If you aim at my face, you’ll connect and then immediately start to pull back. You lose impact.” Again, he gave a slow motion demonstration. “You need to try to hit  _ through _ my face. Imagine my face is a cloth hanging in front of the target that you  _ really _ want to hit. You want your fist to connect with my face and  _ keep going _ , to get the full force of the punch. Look.” 

He took hold of Freddie’s hand, curled his fingered into a fist and then brought the fist slowly up to his face. Freddie’s knuckles met his cheek and the lad turned his neck, keeping Freddie’s hand pressed against his face as he slowly swivelled around until he was looking completely over his shoulder. “See?” 

He let go of Freddie’s hand, but not before running his rough fingers gently over his knuckles. Freddie clutched at his hand, trapping that soft touch to him. “Yeah.” He felt somehow very exposed. This was odd. The whole day was fucking odd. “Uh… Thanks,” he added, nodding politely.

A loose shrug. “No problem.” The lad went back to his pile of belongings, slinging his coat over one shoulder and pinning it in place with the strap of his bag. He picked up his brace of rabbits and fastened them somehow to his belt. Freddie realised he was staring. He snapped his attention to his feet and then looked around himself, trying to remember why he was in a field in the middle of fucking nowhere anyway. 

The lad put his cap on and then doffed it politely at Freddie, squinting a little in the afternoon sun. “Put in some practice, and maybe next time you can make him suck your cock, eh?”

Freddie wanted to die. “Ah. You did hear.” Of course he had. Just how much had this bloke actually seen? Had he been there, skulking behind the hedge the entire time he and Tommy had been there? Had he seen…? 

_ Fuck. _

Another loose shrug. “I heard.” He looked up at Freddie with an inscrutable expression.

Freddie took a step towards him, patting his pockets for his wallet. Perhaps he could pay him off? Tommy’d give him the cash back - and more, if he thought there was any risk of the authorities finding out. “Look…” he started, but was cut off.

“Or, if you want, I could take care of it for you.” A very deliberate lick of the lips and another glance up and down his body. 

Freddie felt like he was falling. “Sorry?” He must have misheard.

A steadying hand grasped his arm just below the elbow. This shrug was smaller, just a dip of the head. “If you were interested.” He let go of Freddie’s arm to point back the way he’d come. “I’m camping down by the stream in the next field. It’s just me so it’s just a little tent, but it’s comfortable.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “And private.”

“I…” Freddie’s mind was reeling. He’d never been propositioned so directly before. Fuck, he’d hardly ever been propositioned at all. Most of his experiences were him just trying his luck with playfully reaching for someone’s cock and hoping that if he did get smacked round the head for trying, he could play it off as a joke. For an attractive man like this to just outright  _ say it _ . His face felt cold as his blood rushed elsewhere.

“You could tell me about Berlin. Sounds like a place I’d like to visit someday.” The lad took a step or two alongside the hedge and jerked his head in invitation for Freddie to join him. 

Almost automatically, Freddie found himself falling into step next to him. “Yeah. That’d be nice.” They were heading towards a gate further down the field. A gate to the next field, in which there was a tent. And privacy. He allowed himself to take a proper look at his companion. He was certainly well put together. Slim but stocky. Strong. 

His mouth watered.

“I’m Bonnie, by the way.” The lad stuck his hand out for a shake.

“Freddie.”

“Nice to meet you.”

* * *


End file.
